A collection of short stories, articles, and poems intended to entertain, inform, and consider.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

MY CAR ACCIDENT - PART FOUR

The year 2009 was the worst year of my life. All those assessments did was make me realize what a mess my life had become. I couldn’t let go of how it used to be. I wanted it back and dwelled on it. I really tried not to, but I guess I just wasn’t strong enough. We used to be a happy family. We had everything going for us. We had more than enough. We had money to spend on what we wanted. We did fun things on the weekend, took long walks together, went to the park for picnics. We were close. We had no worries. We had no debt. Then in the blink of an eye everything changed, forever. Now, we were each doing our own thing, never spending time together as a family.The entire year was a complete blur. I went to physio when it was approved, I went to all those assessments, and slept. I was dependant on pain killers, sleeping pills, and OTC muscle relaxants with codeine. I was living in a fog.Now my son just carried on with life as he normally would, playing with friends, going to school, and preparing for holidays. My partner had worked a lot of hours and they both went to Newfoundland for a two week trip when the school year was done. I was glad to stay home as I didn’t care to see that place ever again. At the end of July the insurance company declined the housekeeping benefits I had been getting, and by October they completely cut me off my income replacement benefits. We were barely making ends meet as it was, and by the end of the year we were selling our furniture to pay our rent. I don’t know how we made it through the rest of the year. Bills kept piling up, we were broke from cheque to cheque, and my partner and I were like strangers living in the same house. I barely saw him. And another long painful winter passed by.By spring, 2010, we found a cheaper apartment on the other side of town and moved again. We had to sell all we could just to come up with the first and last month’s rent. I started driving again and drove my son to and from school every day. We had very little furniture and bought a used sofa and table and chairs. My son had all his bedroom furniture and all his things so he was pretty content and adapted well to the new place and his new surroundings. I thought with a new start in a new place that it was time for me to come out of my stupor and be a better mom. I had really let myself go; I had spent too much time at rock bottom, and spent way too much time in self-pity. Yes, I had problems, yes, I was living with pain every day, and yes, I felt like crap, but I still had my family, I wasn’t in a wheelchair, and there were other people out there living a worse life. I started walking, but it wasn’t easy. I kept thinking if I could just get through this hurdle, if I could just see some improvement, if I could only burst through the bubble I was in, maybe, just maybe, I would feel better, but my spirit had been broken beyond repair, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t keep up the momentum. I had no family to talk to, I had no support, my partner was gone all the time, and I couldn’t talk to my son; he had been through enough, he had to grow up a little faster than he should have and that had filled me with enough guilt. I was all alone.I spent a months of sleepless nights trying to get off the sleeping pills, but eventually I was able to sleep again. I got myself into a bedtime ritual that helped me get a few hours’ sleep; even though I woke up frequently, I accepted the fact that that was the way sleep was going to be for me. I couldn’t get help with my drug addiction, nor could I tell anyone what I was really feeling for fear that my son would be taken away from me. By June the lawyer sent a RN (Nurse) and Kinesiologist to me to do an assessment of my current situation. The lawyer had been working on my case and after the insurance company reviewed her report my benefits were reinstated.My partner and son took a two week trip to Newfoundland using credit cards and later that summer my cousin and her family came from Nova Scotia for a visit. It was nice to get out with different people and our kids got along great. But after they left I felt lonelier than ever. Soon my son was back in school and I was slipping back into my usual routine, physio, pain killers, and sleep. I tried to keep walking, but the cold would make my pain worse, so I eventually gave up. I kept up with my housework though, that was one good thing. Well, our apartment was scantily decorated, so there wasn’t much to do, other than a few dishes, beds, bathroom, vacuuming, and it would take me all day to do that. That winter I spent a lot of time in my own head, not only thinking about how we were before the accident, but how I had lived my entire life. Everything came to me, my childhood, my years in school, my teenage life, the mistakes I had made, the bad decisions, I was analyzing everything in my life. And I grew more and more depressed, negative, critical, cynical. I couldn’t see joy in anything. Only for my son I don’t know where I would be right now. He was my rock, my reason for living, the only one that I could count on. He was there with me, through it all, keeping me company, understanding, but not understanding, laughing with me, crying with me, keeping me going. I owed everything to him and he deserved better. So, I don’t know how I did it, but I kept going, for him.November 2009 - December 2010